


A Series of Character Studies (and the Moments They Fall in Love)

by 0027



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Developing Relationship, Drabble Collection, Fluff, Freddie Mercury Is a Good Friend, Intimacy, Light Angst, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Other, Romance, Sensuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-01
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2020-07-28 19:41:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20069497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0027/pseuds/0027
Summary: Crowley is Fallen. Aziraphale is Exalted. It should be as simple as that, but nothing is ever as simple as anyone would like it to be. A series of drabbles depicting the ebb and flow of their existence that tugs and revolves at the other relentlessly in a vicious, never-ending cycle. There may be no ending, but they will always be happy.Written for a person dear to me.





	1. CROWLEY: ACT I - ABSTAIN

The body is a divine temple of God, where the Holy Spirit resides, where the tender soul and the essence of living make home deep within the sanctuary of woven bones and flesh. You cleanse the temple of God, you sing praises in the temple of God, you pray in the temple of God. Seek forgiveness. Seek amnesty. Seek refuge. They've said this once and twice again, _the Devil sits among the Lambs within the house of God— he recites the Lord's psalms, and sings along the hymns of Heaven_. It burns Crowley's tongue so, but will it never stop him from humming the all-too-familiar worship under his tongue that's split in two and has been created to hiss and slither, and flick in the air, to taste the heat and the moisture and the pungent scent of sulfur. It tastes funny. Aziraphale doesn't. Will it never stop him from curving his spine to press his forehead against the bows of Aziraphale's feet as he cradles them within cold, wiry fingers, thumbs brushing against the dips and crooks; over manicured nails and the slope of his toes. Will it never. Crowley wills it. _He wills it_.  


So it shall be.  


There is a reason why Aziraphale is warm to the touch and that is because if he pried any more he'd be _burning_ to the touch. Searing to the touch. Crowley knows he'll be burned inside out. He is Fallen and Aziraphale is Exalted, it is as simple as that. He is cold, because he is a serpent, and any more Aziraphale pries into him then he'll coil around him like a prey, to squeeze the life out of its hunt, to sink its fangs and unhinge its jaws till everything is swallowed whole. Crowley plants a kiss on the feet he holds, his own knees pressed together as he slouches forward, downward; curling in on himself. His eyes are open and his lashes feather against the skin. Crowley counts every mole he sees, every freckle, on the perfect body; the temple of God, where he'll sing his praises and worship the Lord. You cleanse the temple of God.  


The basin of golden water beside him lays tranquil till he finally shifts and pulls it along. Yellow eyes peer upwards. Crowley doesn't need to see; but he does, and he watches carefully, tactfully, passionately. He gazes into the windows of Aziraphale's soul through the shadowed eyes that look no longer blue in the darkness of the night, but deep and brooding, like the ocean's waves crashing against a twilight shore and Crowley is almost taken under. He'd be taken under. He wants to be taken under. Slowly, he lets down Aziraphale's feet, toes to ankles, into the basin that smells of frankincense as the Wise Men once brought to the Lamb when he was birthed upon this Earth as a wretch to shoulder the sins of humanity. And then, Crowley's gaze comes back down as he washes the feet, each crevice, running fingers along the downside, to the slope of the legs. It is Aziraphale's body, and it is his temple. Gentle. Be gentle. Do it gently. Crowley's fingers barely ghost over his angel's skin.  


** Abstain**.  


You sing praises in the temple of God. Crowley's lips part, and there is a difficult, lopsided smile, carving dimples into his cheeks and he says: _"You're beautiful, angel." _  


You pray in the temple of God. Seek forgiveness— _"I'm sorry, angel." _ Seek amnesty— _"I tempted you. Couldn't let you go. All the way from Heaven's grace to, **oh**, you've fallen so far. Far enough."_ Seek refuge._ "No more. No more of that. Our own side, now. Your side. My side. **Our side**." _  


Its echoes resonate deep enough and Crowley lifts Aziraphale's feet. He binds them by his hands, and pushes the basin away, to dry them with a towel and lathers it with oil of the purest myrrh. His hands are still cold. Aziraphale is still warm. Crowley kisses them; the left one, and then the right, then he stays there. There is no Samael, no Serpent of Eden. No Tempter, no Demon, no Angel. It is simply _him_, Crowley, by the feet of his light, his sun, his star. By the feet of his god, the feet of his world. Crowley revolves around him as much as Aziraphale does the same, and there is nothing more he could ask for, he could want, he could covet. 

**_ Abstain_**.  


_ "Aziraphale, I love you." _ A murmur against the silence of their entwining breaths as he welcomes the darkness behind closed eyes._ "I've fallen in love with you." _  



	2. CROWLEY: ACT II - THE BEGINNING

Once, Crowley was an angel, whose wings spanned the galaxy as he forged the stars, the falling ones— the spiraling ones, the comets and the asteroids. He had once been the light; the one molded in darkness at the Beginning of All Beginnings, when there was Nothing and Nothing at All. Angels sung choirs for God and Lucifer's hymns were the beautifulest of them all. But _Crowley's_ beginning did not start there. It did not start in Heaven, and it did not start in Hell. It started at Eden's gate, atop the Wall, under the downpour of the first thunderstorm, tucked beneath an ivory wing. It was a dark and stormy night. Aziraphale was Crowley's beginning.

It all started with an apple, and a seed of doubt. No, it might've placed somewhat earlier than that; when Crowley slithered on his belly, leaving a wake of dirt-spun waves in his trail. It started with flowers, especially the roses, and the beauty of Eden that he could not grasp between his fingers, because he had none, and only had a dancing, split tongue that flickered in the air to taste honey dew and morning mist. 

_Go up there and cause trouble,_ they said. Crowley's words were often spun in silver and silk, spoken in riddles, ending with questions. He was a Temptress and tempt did he; for Eve to bite into the Fruit of Knowledge, forbidden to humans. Forbidden to everyone. Crowley had wondered, yellow eyes bearing into dark ones that reflected his sordid scales, _if God had meant it to be truly forbidden, why didn't She put it somewhere you couldn't reach? Why would She put it right here, in front of you, an arm's length away?_

They'd been genuine, those questions he asked. Crowley didn't have to coax her, or goad her. She thought on her own, and came to a decision on her own. Humans had done things on their own from the moment they were made. It wasn't his fault that he'd always asked one too many questions since forever, and it wasn't hard to let his mind wander so much when he had seen the Universe's conception at the tips of his fingers when the Lord molded nothing into something, then something, into everything. It included him. The stars. The planets. The galaxies. And all the other angels Up Above, including the ones Down Below. 

Of _course_ it'd fit the ego of a demon, as it should) had noted, with absolute disinterest, and not a single care, that there would be an angel on Apple Guard Duty in Eden. Crowley didn't care either, did he?

But he _was_ intrigued.

Because there was no one else who'd leave roses in the same path he slithered, the latent ones indenting the ground along the same tread Crowley had crawled on for however much time passed in Eden, except for the angel. It was a miracle he had not dug a tunnel, as each day his trails were gone, and foliage grew to hide the marks he left behind. The angel who hid behind the Tree, the angel who kept his eyes on him. Crowley never turned to look at the angel; he thought it'd be too bright for his eyes, that were used to the darkness of Hell, and the color beneath sulfur pools. The sun was enough to bask on. 

After all, he'd Fallen, and the Fallen weren't supposed to mingle with the Divine. The Exalted. Though, there _was_ no time, no consqeuences, no care. Crowley spent hours staring at bright, red cherries, and bright, red flowers. Roses, they were called. They had thorns on their stems and Crowley spoke to them.

Roses died if their thorns were removed. He found out the hard way, when Adam plucked them off for Eve and they wilted in his hands. Crowley kept still, and never coiled his long, wiry body— like a never-ending tail, or never-ending spine, limbless, weird and alien— because he would have crushed them. So all he did was admire the roses, and prayed to God that one day, they'd be able to live without their thorns, and he'd be able to hold them between his fingers. That he'd be able to bury his nose into the petals, just as a hungry bee hunted for pollen, and place them in great vases under the sunlight they both loved so much. Both him, a serpent, and roses, a flower. They weren't so different, after all. What divided a human from an animal, and an animal from a plant? Crowley couldn't see it. He saw the roses breathe. He heard them sing. They both needed the sun, and they were both red. They were the same.

Adam had dubbed him a snake when he named all the animals God had created, and Crowley had never taken to that name. The demons Down Below called him _Crawly_ and he did not like it one bit, but decisions were hard to make, and it took him a good millennia before he came to the decision that he would change his name to Crowley. It was the first decision he made for himself, and Aziraphale was the first to know. The angel had many guesses, most of them ridiculous, and Crowley entertained them all. But that came after the dark and stormy night. It was a story that marked a Second Beginning, but not Crowley's True Beginning.

Eden. _Aziraphale._ (Crowley did not learn of his name until much later. But he did, and when he did, he thought it settled nicely on his tongue and between his teeth.)

What sort of madman was this angel, that he left roses at sunrise, and Crowley had to gather them all by sunset? Although his scales were strong enough to withstand the thorns (and it would have been the roses that could not withstand his mass), they were plucked by the head, and bloomed beautifully despite passing days. Crowley had gathered them into what he named a boquet in the dirt of his den that he slept in by the running creek. (Why running? It was a slow creek. It should be called a walking creek. A strolling creek. Yes, he quite liked how that sounded.) They were warm, he thought, oddly. Flowers weren't warm. Crowley stuck his snout beneath the petals and his tongue flickered. The scent of Heaven lingered between ever-blooming petals.


	3. CROWLEY: ACT III - FALL

Falling once doesn't make falling a second time easier. Not when the first fall left a profound and painful mark; burnt skin and stardust scorched into ashes that formed hardened scales mixed red with blood. Soot and blood. Angels bleed red too, the moment they Fall. Whether this is intentional or a mistake on God's part (to which, Crowley had been told, God doesn't make mistakes, and everything's been accounted for from the very beginning), the tumble down hurt more than Crowley cares to admit.

Being damned isn't so bad when you're used to it. In fact, being damned is the easier part of the two acts; between Falling and living as a condemned angel, banished to Hell for all eternity. The sulfur bath wasn't as pleasant but it was bearable, and the other demons weren't ever as nosy as Aziraphale's coworkers (if they could be called _co_workers) as long as he did whatever he was expected to.

To be fair, most, if not all, of them didn't understand half of the words he used at any given moment, especially when Crowley came to report his achievements. A part of him relished in how stupid they were. A part of him wept— _because how could anyone be so stupid?_

Stuck in the first century, the lot of them. At least, Crowley thought then, he wasn't stuck doing paperwork in Hell or being neck-deep in supernatural politics Heaven's always up to.

_Up to_, because they're in Heaven, get it?

Despite having been banned from Heaven altogether, there isn't much actually in the way of preventing a demon from taking the elevator up, or an angel taking the elevator down. It's simply because nobody would. Nobody else except for the odd pair, namely Aziraphale and Crowley. It's always been Aziraphale and Crowley. Crawly, at some point. And maybe Anthony, but the angel's never seemed to be particularly fond of that name. Though, Crowley has never called Aziraphale _'Mr. Fell'_ either. In any case, Crowley doesn't suppose anyone has ever accounted for them, or accounted for the fact that a demon can so easily stay by an angel's side for six odd millennia.

Except for Agnes Nutter, Witch. Blasted prophecies. They're what led the whole hellbent race for the Armageddon, aren't they? Prophecies. Funny, because both Hell _and_ Heaven are hellbent for it. There might even be more attempts coming in the not so near future and Crowley's not too keen about it.

Given the chance, however, Crowley would do it all over again. Truthfully, he's rather grateful for it all— grateful for Aziraphale. For the day he gazed up at white wings and a white robe, and white tufts of cloud-like hair. It must feel _like_ clouds, Crowley thought then, because he didn't know what _soft_ is like. Still doesn't know how a cloud would feel like between his fingers either. In the end, he slithered up the wall, scaled it, almost painfully, to crawl his way by the angel's feet, over on the left, because it felt right. Laid his eyes on the expanse of sand, and more sand, morphing himself to what he remembered to be before the Fall. Before he was cursed to crawl on his belly, before he was cursed with slits for pupils and a brand by his ear.

And then, he gazed where he wasn't allowed to. Eyes wide, unblinking.

Crowley basked in Aziraphale's light.

Falling and falling in love are two very different things, Crowley learned. For one, when he first Fell, there was no love; only bitter confusion and aching all the way down. A stabbing pain where his heart would've been. It was dark, and all he could ask was, _why?_ He'd called out to God but his voice didn't reach Her as he took the tumble down over what were once an endless flights of stone stairs to the center of the Earth. And then, he was lost. 

Right now, he's lost too, except there's someone holding his hand, and someone lighting up the dark, murky path ahead— the unfamiliar path he can't quite fathom. A warm hand. A _beautiful_ hand. Bright, blue eyes and a bright, clear smile. A shoulder wiggle, fingers that slot perfectly between his own. Crowley's palm curls over Aziraphale's and he rolls the golden ring decorating the angel's pinky between his index and thumb. He should buy one more, Crowley thinks. There's one he saw a fortnight ago that he particularly thought would fit his angel.

Aziraphale's flickering glances don't go unnoticed by Crowley, but he's quiet, and so is Crowley. Lean fingers study the well-kept nails, manicured to perfection, and maybe— are they painted over with a transparent polish? Crowley swipes his thumb over a nail. _It's beautiful._ He memorizes the dips and the veins, the rolls of each knuckle, and turns it over to study the lines on his palm. Tips of Crpwley's fingers ghost over them, and Aziraphale seems to tense to his— _left_.

Funny. Some time ago, being to the angel's right would've felt wrong.

"Angel?" he whispers.

"Yes, my dear?" Aziraphale sounds like he's trying hard to keep his voice even. He clears his throat.

"Your line here's cut short," Crowley traces a feather light touch along its downwards length, nail barely grazing. His hand's no longer cold because he's been holding onto Aziraphale for long enough, while Aziraphale's seem to be a bit damp. (Angels don't sweat, do they?)

"Palmistry?" Intrigued, he lowers his book, and takes his reading glasses off with the unoccupied hand. Aziraphale leans closer, and his breath is caught for a moment. "I didn't know you read lines."

"I don't. Someone read mine a long time ago," Crowley's voice is low, private. "They called it the fate line. Right here, right down the middle of the palm—" he draws over it gently, tenderly, barely pressing against the skin and Aziraphale shudders. "Mine's cut short too."

Blues look at what Crowley's shown him on his palm, and true to the demon's words, it's cut short on his as well. "Well, what does it mean?"

"I don't remember. Something about fortunes. Destiny." Yellow eyes shift to gaze upon Aziraphale's thoughtful expression and stays there. "I didn't believe him."

"Why not?" It takes a while for Crowley to answer, lips parting. Aziraphale would look at him momentarily, back at the palm, then to him. The angel shifts in his seat. A second feels like a minute. A minute like an hour. Crowley's a serpent enough; he could stay still. Aziraphale's patient enough; he could stay still, only if he wasn't so restless under the unwavering, yellow stare. "...I'd like to think I'm very fortunate, Angel. That's why I didn't believe him."

The man had told Crowley two things: one, was that he'd be wandering and lost for all his life, and two, that he'd lose those he holds dear— everyone and everything he cares about. The man had told Crowley he'd never seen such a faded line cut so short, so _pathetic_ and _pitiful_. Crowley didn't believe him, not because it was untrue, but because he knew why it was cut short. He still does. And the man wasn't wrong. When you outlive everyone, and everything around you, you're bound to lose them all, one by one, to the test of time. Everything, except for one.

Aziraphale.

And he was never lost with Aziraphale. Never is. _Never will be._

Falling in love is nothing like Crowley thought it would be, like the ones depicted in movies and books, with flowers and rainbows, sunshine and a skip to his steps, or raging jealousy that would tear it all apart in mindless, uncontrollable anger. Sometimes, he finds it's like a storm, or soothing rain. Maybe a hurricane. Sometimes it's the crashing waves, other times lightning and thunder, and the heat of fire burning his heart and his cheeks, or a flip in his guts, and a squeezing in his heart. Most of the time, he's very, very warm. Sometimes he's freezing cold. 

Falling in love is bittersweet, because it makes you think things you would never otherwise think of, and feel things you would otherwise not come to know about. Love makes you feel silly, Crowley thinks, but it's not a bad sort. Not at all.

So he scoops Aziraphale's hand up, and presses his lips on the joints of his fingers. Crowley holds onto it tight enough, as if he's afraid to let go, but not tight enough for it to hurt. Aziraphale's warm, and he still smells of Heaven's Grace. It's been six thousand years, and there's relief in knowing that God hasn't abandoned his angel yet. Maybe God hasn't abandoned anyone at all. _Maybe we were the one who'd forsaken Her. Maybe we were the one who left, the one who denounced Her, the way Judas Iscariot denounced Christ, while the Lamb hadn't even had a thought of it._ Crowley kisses the knuckles, and his eyes close when the hand shifts to curve against his jaw.

"Crowley..."

Falling once doesn't make falling a second time easier. But nothing's ever easy, and Crowley's existed long enough to know of that. And to, for once, start believing again. Maybe She does have a plan, after all. And that plan might be Ineffable, but it's gifted him Aziraphale on the first Fall, and gifted him _Love_ on the second. Crowley glides his palm over Aziraphale's and turns his cheek to press his lips against the fate line that's cut short, drawing his eyes open, landing them on the angel's struck expression. His, reflecting it, honest with all the love, adoration and affection he could possibly convey for the sun, the star, the light of his life.

_"I'm a very fortunate person indeed, my love."_


	4. CROWLEY: ACT IV - SLUMBER

"Why did you wake up then, Anthony?" It was Freddie's voice that broke Crowley's absentminded reverie towards the shot of scotch he'd been nursing for the past half an hour, and was greeted by a waiting face, cheek resting against languid, lithe fingers, when Crowley lifted his eyes from behind the rather opaque shades. (People often questioned his visibility, and Crowley always replied with the fact that he_ sees just fine_. They didn't believe him. Sometimes they mistook him for a blind man.) "You never take those sunglasses off your face, do you?"

"What of it?" came the grumbling answer, and consequently, Freddie's sigh.

"Didn't you tell me you slept for a _century?"_ he persisted, though Freddie's tone took it as if Crowley's words were an exaggeration. He couldn't have slept for a century, really. That'd be rather impossible, despite the part of Freddie that wanted to believe _Anthony_ was a vampire immortal of the sorts. His name sounded like it too: Anthony J. Crowley. What did the J stand for? He hadn't got a clue. Years since he'd known him and not even once had Freddie ever seen the man's eyes! Suspicious, indeed. But he was a good man, and the first man who decidedly sponsored his music. What could Freddie complain about? Nothing! Nothing with enough weight to it to lend any sort of argument. That, and Crowley was particularly nice to look at.

Maybe his absolute disinterest also added to the supposedly aloof charm the redhead had. (There might have been moments in the past where Freddie cozied up to Crowley, and all he had to say on the matter was, _'What other songs have you written? Contact me if you need funds for the recording. Do you have a studio?')_

"So why did you wake up?" Freddie repeated the question, this time, leaning towards Crowley, arms crossed on the table. They were lounging in the recording studio, out in the office area, where the rest had gone and left the two alone. It was one of those nights, where everyone else had something to do, and they didn't have anything particularly interesting on the schedule. Except, a chance of getting drunk, and rambling somebody's ears off. "You've been here for quite a while, you know. It's almost one in the morning."

Right. The sleep. Crowley remembered it rather well— no, that would be a lie. He didn't remember much of the time he spent sleeping, but he remembered why he did, and he remembered something else. The nineteenth century was a_ jolly good_ one, it was. There was a part of Crowley that thought, maybe he shouldn't have missed out on all the fun that happened then, and all the things he could've been up to. But it didn't matter anymore, now that it was in the past, and Crowley had found himself in the middle of the good twentieth century. He swung the drink back and it burned the way down. Glass met the wooden surface of the table loudly, and Freddie jolted somewhat in his seat. After sleeping for a good hundred odd years, was time of any more consequence? It was one a.m., _so what?_

He just didn't want his angel to get into trouble he didn't ask for.

"It was no good for someone like me to be around someone like him, right? It wasn't. It was a stupid idea. I asked for insurance, he didn't give it to me. How was I supposed to— s'posed to— _fighttem_ _off?"_ slurred Crowley, wiping the lower half of his face with his palm, before his forehead rested between cold fingers and his nose pointed down to the empty glass. He could barely see his own, distorted reflection on it. "He was always so worried, thought Hell would come after me, and I'd... I'd end up, you know, _dead._ But I knew that from the Beginning. I took that risk. _He_ didn't. He didn't know what would come for him if Hell found the angel I've been—" a bitter curl of his lips, and the next words's spat out with a shudder, "—**_fraternizing_** with. More than just an angry note, for sure. Heaven wouldn't want to get its hands dirty of course, so they'd go— they'd go to Hell to do the dirty work. I know they would."

How poetic, Freddie thought. And that was the only thing he could think about, because the story made no sense. Heaven and Hell? Angels? Insurance? Holy water? Crowley made it sound as if he was a demon in love with an angel. Freddie hummed. He quite liked that story. But right then, he was trying to comfort a poor friend in distress.

"So you went back home to sleep," he added empathetically. "I've got some days like that too, sleeping the whole day away."

"It was death practice," mumbled Crowley. Freddie's lips pressed together. He shouldn't laugh.

"Come on, Anthony, it's not a good night to be so glum. Why don't you go meet him? I'm sure he wouldn't mind. You haven't met up with your angel yet since that time at the church?" A reassuring hand rested on Crowley's back, rubbing warmly. Freddie offered a smile. Crowley grunted.

"No, we've... met each other sometimes. But it wasn't, I didn't linger for long. I didn't want to, make things, worse than it already is. I don't."

"Right, but you said you were woken up from the sleep. Was it something shocking? A nightmare?"

_Nightmare?_ Crowley blanched.

No. It was the opposite of a nightmare, wasn't it? A pleasant dream, of warm hands running over the length of his hair that had grown far too long. Fingers lacing with his, clipping along the nails, a gentle wipe of damp towel across his cheeks and lips. The fresh scent of a bakery and sweets, other times, old books and pine trees, then dahlias and sunflowers. _Roses and cherries._ There were many different ones, and it changed from time to time, but it was a constant presence and felt the same through passing years, and through the haze of slumber, the haze of heat and rain, thunder and lightning. It was the same, because it always seared when prayer hands rested against his chest, and the divine blessing of Heaven, gifted by an angel, was presented upon a demon of Hell. It made it hard to breathe in his dreams.

He was an angel once. But that was a long time ago.

When Crowley straightened up, Freddie's hand fell away, and he followed the movement of Crowley's head as serpentine eyes stared ahead. There was once a time where Freddie would've tried to earn a note of affection from the rather interestingly dressed man, clad in almost all black, shades infinitely stuck to his face. But that was before he spoke of his_ Angel_ and how he spoke of him, too. He was all _Anthony_ talked about sometimes. The crepe-loving Angel, fancily dressed, collecting signed, first edition books like a dragon hoarding gold and diamonds in its lair. _An avid collector of stories and tales,_ Crowley said once, _he'd spend all eternity reading if he were given the chance to._ There's a conceding smile along the lines of Freddie's face. Win him over that? Oh, no.

Crowley's thumb rolled against the rim of the glass, silence greeting them like a curtain at the end of a show with no applause to be heard. Just the dragging weight of the fabric as the lights dimmed.

There were sins and there were mistakes. Not all mistakes were sins and not all sins were mistakes, but there was a small part between where they converge. A yet smaller part where they were cherished. Angels didn't dream, was what Crowley heard once. They didn't, he supposed. Sometimes he saw visions, but if they didn't truly sleep, were they ever truly dreaming? Crowley didn't dare dream. He didn't dare lose himself in the recesses of his own mind, whispering things he had never thought he'd wanted to hear, showing things he never thought he'd wanted to see.

(No, it was a lie, he had wanted to see Aziraphale and it was rather clear he did. But Crowley didn't dare. He denied it, the way Peter denied the Lamb thrice before the rooster crowed the morning Christ was crucified. The crow never came for Crowley. He woke up aching, sweating, with tossed bedsheets and ragged breaths._ He missed something. **Someone.**_ Crowley drank and drowned his head in water.)

"I saw him in my dreams." _All of them. They hurt, because I knew it wasn't real._ "So I woke up."

And Aziraphale wasn't there.


	5. CROWLEY: ACT V - WORSHIP

There's a secret Crowley keeps well and close to himself, of something lingering always at the back of his heart, where the _want_ has stayed and made its burrow there, sinking like silt beneath the ocean floor. Sundays are meant to be days of worship to the Lord, but Crowley's tongue is singing praises against Aziraphale's, body dancing and curving to the slope of the angel's warm figure flush on his own. They're lips to lips, nose to nose, breath to breath. Crowley can feel Aziraphale's heartbeat through the layers of clothes he wears, and his hands hold him close by the hips, the fabric of Aziraphale's trousers rustling against Crowley's. How many hours have they been here?

"How long do you plan to do this, Crowley?" comes Aziraphale's question from between plump lips and a flushed face. He swallows and sighs, the flush of ripe cherry on his face not cooling down even as he cants his head upwards for a bit of space and air. _Something he doesn't need._ But Crowley's exhales are warm and damp, while the night air is cool and dry. Not that it's helping in any particular way— it's _still_ hot. His ears are still drumming. His head's still spinning.

"_We_, Angel," Crowley corrects, murmuring on the exposed skin of Aziraphale's neck, lips parting and teeth nipping where he kisses. "Whenever you want us to stop."

To praise the Lord is to love all that She has created upon this Good Earth; the great and the small, the ones above, and the ones below. But the definition of worship has gotten muddied over the years— _desecrated_ over the years— tainted by the carnal and the wretched. The line between sin and virtue has become thin, and thinner yet, _thinner still_, as Crowley inches towards Aziraphale's jaw. Inches towards his lips. It's Aziraphale who meets him in the middle, a little more eager than any 'angel' should ever be. Crowley accepts it in his whole. But now, his angel doesn't smell of Heaven's grace, and his kisses don't spark like lightning any more— it tastes of sweets and tea, the dessert they had just moments ago, and Crowley takes it all in until Aziraphale is all there is.

He's almost reluctant to close his eyes in the wake of every wander Aziraphale presents him with. Parted lips and ragged breaths, a grunt of his name and fingers curling into fists over the fabric of his clothes (that Crowley has, for once, gotten tailor-made by an actual, human person, somewhere downtown). They'll leave wrinkles but Crowley doesn't care. They make no movement to undo any buttons, any zippers— they've kissed, and they kiss again. Sometimes curious, other times lascivious, ravenous, hungry. And then come the tender ones, the gentle and ginger kisses, feather-light, lips mapping the curves and leaving invisible, tingling marks where they trail. To the side of a temple, a cheek, the shell of an ear.

Crowley's eyelids are halfway open and his voice rumbles by Aziraphale's ear, "Do you want to stop?"

Aziraphale's palms find Crowley's shoulders and his fingers dig, thighs locking, toes curling. "No," he answers, "I don't."

Neither of them need this. Although sometimes, what you want has got nothing to do with what you need. It's as if the night's slowed just for them— how the hour hand ticks at two for the past endless seconds, how the moon still hangs among the splatters of stars in the dark expanse of the sky and keeps still, unmoving, unwavering. The bed sinks with their combined weight as someone— _one of them_, both, perhaps, coaxes their bodies towards the pillows and Crowley finds himself mesmerized by the shadowy depths of Aziraphale's eyes. They are clear, and so are his own.

"Let me love you, Angel."

"You already have, my dear."

"Your body." Because it's the vessel that has brought them together, brought them closer, brought them to come to love the world and humans and everything between the Good and the Bad. Because the body is what lies next to him, what has shielded him from a thunderstorm and what he has been holding onto for the last six thousand odd years. They aren't humans, but they aren't an angel and a demon any longer. Eternity is a long time to live without company, and Aziraphale's body is the host to the being that holds Crowley's heart in the palm of their hands, guiding them with thousands of eyes and rings of light down the murky path. _Your body._

"My body."

"Yes, love."

The coat comes off first, sliding off Aziraphale's shoulder, and he folds it neatly to the side. Crowley observes. Aziraphale pops every button with precision and his gaze doesn't flicker towards the Serpent laying in wait. There is no movement made to rouse Crowley from his rest, and no coy smile to incite vulgar lapses; there are no hands toying over half-hard cocks, slipping past the waist band of anybody's trousers. There's simply a bout of serenity as Aziraphale folds his vest too, and piles it atop the coat. He smiles. Crowley's fingers hook around Aziraphale's, and Aziraphale grasps it so they're entwined in a firm clasp.

"What are you going to do?" asks Aziraphale.

Crowley's thumb rubs absentmindedly on Aziraphale's hand. "Praise you."

"With words?"

"With my body." Once upon a time, his feelings for Aziraphale would have frustrated him till the end of twilight and dusk, till dawn rose past the horizon and Crowley realized that he'd spent a whole day brooding. (He spent a century, in his sleep, and he doesn't think he can break any records of that any time soon. Or at all. It was a century, and a century too long.)

Aziraphale sighs, "_Oh_, Crowley." _What shall we ever do with you?_

_Fucking_ is a vulgar word but it's a word all the same. It's a word that's rolled off both their tongues enough times, rasped between knit brows and beads of sweat rolling down a collarbone. _Fuck._ It's Crowley once as he leaves marks against Aziraphale's belly, blunt nails drawing crescents on the small of Aziraphale's back. Twice, it's Aziraphale, with an arching spine and elated laughter. It's Crowley's hands and fingers and kisses running down his angel's leg and the dip of a hip. It's the way they keen for _more_. Thrice, Crowley has Aziraphale held closely in his arms, against his chest, the heels of his feet digging into the bedsheets.

Tears taste salty, or so Crowley has come to learn. But he tastes only of Aziraphale now, head canted to the ceiling in a trance. "I'm sorry—"

Panic is an ugly feeling, and it settles in the pit of Aziraphale's guts.

"Wh-what?" he stammers, because has Crowley regretted it? Does he think that he's made a mistake, grown an irrevocable disgust? Was it all no good? There's guilt, and shame, pain, disappointment, and anger and sadness all gone by too fast. It takes a couple seconds for Aziraphale to set his expression proper, fists on Crowley's chest, and he doesn't dare look at the other. Not even in the dark. _"Sorry?_ Why are you _sorry,_ Crowley? You—"

But Aziraphale looks anyway, the exact moment Crowley's chin tucks, yellow eyes unblinking, and loving.

"—I'm sorry, God, I've taken this angel away."


End file.
